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Monday, 19 December 2016

Green Seniors supports the current postal strikes because they are not just in defence of workers' pay, conditions
and pensions, the strikes are against Post Office privatisation and closure
plans..

Communication
Workers Union General SecretaryDave Wardsaid:
“Our members are being forced into fighting to save their jobs and this great
institution from terminal decline.”

“We didn’t want to be in this position, but unless we stand up
now, the Post Office as we know it will cease to exist. We are defending the
very future of the Post Office in this country.

“We want a Post Office that works for everyone, for communities,
for small and medium-sized businesses, and for the people who serve them – our
hard working members, but the people running the Post Office have no serious
plan other than further closures and managed decline and we won’t accept that.”
(http://www.cwu.org/media/news/2016/december/12/post-office-bosses-provoke-christmas-week-strike/)

Green Seniors supports the
CWU strike because Post Offices are very important to seniors and disabled
people, fewer post offices means less access to services and social contact for
seniors. The union is right when it says that it is defending a cherished
public service

Sunday, 11 December 2016

On my own responsibility, I am now pursuing this
through TSSA. I also wish to make NPC aware of what TfL is doing. Additionally,
through Ron's chairing of the SERTUC Pensioners Network, I would like this
raised at the next Network meeting. This email was sent today to TSSA following
the appalling outcome of the TfL Pensioners Forum meeting held on Thursday 17
November: As an elected delegate to the TfL Pensioners Consultative Council and
Pensioners Forum, I was yesterday subjected to the disgusting spectacle of TfL
unilaterally ending three key aspects for its 32,000 pensioners.

These were not pension entitlements but additional
facilities which TfL, and before that LRT/LT, pensioners have enjoyed. The
saving from these withdrawals is around £120,000 a year, which is 0.005% of the
£2.9 billion the organisation is seeking to cut from its expenditure. The three
things funded by TfL which have been unilaterally withdrawn (two were subjected
to a 'consultation' pressured by time and as expected, our responses were
ignored) are...

The annual calendar
to all pensioners, which also contains the contact details every pensioner needs,
on good quality paper which will last for a year (unilaterally withdrawn by the
Commissioner, no consultation). Annual cost around £25,000.

The 'replacement' contact list will be in an existing
quarterly pensioner magazine, which is on low-quality paper and has no
durability, even assuming pensioners see the information and remember to retain
it;

The small hamper,
which is an age-related qualification and only goes to oldest pensioners, and
the surviving partners of the eldest, the latter only every five years. Annual
cost £28,000;

and The Pensioner Liaison Representative (PLR) Scheme - this
is a voluntary arrangement whereby other TfL pensioners who are still active
and mobile maintain links with older TfL pensioners in a region close to the
activist's address. TfL's argument in this case is that less than 15% of
pensioners are reached. Even so, over 3000 isolated and often infirm pensioners
have a link via PLRs to former colleagues and people who understand their
needs. Replacements for PLRs are suggested (by management, who are all in the
workplace and do not have any understanding of specialised needs of older
people) as Age UK and "other services in the voluntary sector". Our
PLRs are free to TfL pensioners, but management do not care that Age UK for
example charges £16.50 an hour, just to make an assessment.

TfL's savings are
spread across the entire organisation but while each department and office make
sacrifices by consultation (...), pensioners who have no effective voice and
whose utility to TfL has ended, are now seen as only a liability, have been hit
for everything, to save a sum which will not make any appreciable difference to
the overall savings. The Pensioners Forum did as request, and consulted
colleagues. We offered cut-back alternatives for hampers, and ways to make the
PLR Scheme more cost-effective. Our submissions were flatly ignored. We had
already been presented with a non-negotiable fait accompli on the calendar,
which we believe is also sent to people other than pensioners, and we are being
asked to bear that cost too.

I am therefore asking
my union, of which I have been a full subscribing member since July 1986 (with
one intervening three-month free membership period in year 2000!) and an
activist for all this century, on the EC, my branches and Division, on the
Standing Orders Committee, and now in the Retired Members' Group, to take up
this blatant unfairness and bullying of a cadre of former employees who cannot
fight back in any directly meaningful way.

Pensioners are still people, many are still TSSA members.
Our pensions are deferred wages - we paid for them. Many pensioners gave loyal
service and many also served 'London Transport' in World War 2. This is not a
decent, human way to repay that.

My colleagues in RMT and ASLEF should be making similar
approaches to their unions. We (TSSA) supported Sadiq Khan to become Mayor of
London, and I'm asking you to directly ask him the following questions:

1. What exactly were
Sadiq's or his representatives' instructions to TfL in general and to Mike
Brown as to the making of savings?

2. Did the Mayor or his representatives ever use the term
'non-operational spend' or anything similar or which could be taken to mean
that, in terms of the savings sought from TfL?

3. Is the Mayor
content that pensioners are being forced to pay for these savings?

4. Does the Mayor
really believe that removing around £120,000 from the annual TfL budget will in
any meaningful way help reach the £2.9 billion saving?

If the Mayor demurs
from answering these questions, please advise me, and use your best endeavours
to seek responses via the London Labour Party and the Greater London Assembly.

Please ask these questions as a matter of urgency and send
the responses to me as soon as you can. This is a quality of life issue for
32,000 pensioners. Even the management who impose this will one day be
pensioners too - how will they feel when, even with their large pensions, one
day they have something of value taken away from them?

Please do not divert
this into the 'pending' file. 32,000 pensioners are now depending on people
like us to show that Society is not a figment of the late Thatcher's
imagination.

Weds 23 November As well as the Autumn Statement, this day will see the announcement of how many people died last winter because they could not afford to heat their homes – a scandal that is repeated year after year.

FPA will be joining the National Pensioners Convention to mark last year’s winter deaths with black balloons at 12.0 in College Green, and will then join and speak at the launch of Axe the Housing Act’s own Autumn Statement in Old Palace Yard from noon.

The government yesterday dropped one important clause from the Housing Act: “Pay to Stay”. It must now drop the forced sale of Housing Association stock, which will push even more people into cold damp homes where they have no recourse against exploitative private landlords, and must bring back security of tenure in both private and social housing. No fault and retaliatory evictions mean many tenants are afraid to raise issues of heating, hot water, draughts, bad insulation, and energy-guzzling equipment.

Thursday 24 November these points will be pressed home with an early morning “Duvet Die–In” 8.30 at the offices of EDF, 80 Victoria St, where campaigners against fuel poverty will join people whose primary focus has been the climate. For 8.15 meeting place, things to bring etc see facebook event.

The government has hinted at moves to regulate rampant exploitation by suppliers of gas and electricity providers. We shall see. With thousands dying early every year, we are also waiting to see what the Chancellor does

·to meet the legally binding fuel poverty target on insulating homes,

·to end the illegal discrimination against users of prepayment meters – often the customers on the lowest incomes - and against all customers who cannot pay by direct debit,

Thursday, 17 November 2016

The conference on the 40th anniversary of the Lucas Plan in Birmingham on November 26th is set to be the exciting beginning of a new initiative for arms conversion, green jobs and local democratic planning. It is being supported by a group of 16 trade union/left, green and peace organisations, the latest of which is Momentum. Highlights of the conference will include talks by former Lucas Aerospace Combine members, the screening of a new film on the Lucas Plan and many talks by leading campaigners. The workshops will be run so that there is a maximum chance for everyone to participate. Conference places are filling up fast, so BOOK NOW to make sure of your place. Please help us to publicise the conference by forwarding this message appropriately, inviting your Facebook friends, or following us on Twitter: @lucasplan40. Thanks for your help.

Veteran trade unionists and younger activists see Nobel prize-nominated plan as inspiration for the future

Leading figures from the left, trade union, environmental and peace movements are coming together at a conference on November 26th with a fresh perspective on tackling current crises, using the ideas of socially useful production pioneered in the Lucas Plan. The Plan, produced by workers at the Lucas Aerospace arms company, showed how jobs could be saved by converting to make socially useful products, rather than weapons. See www.lucasplan.org.uk, or the notes below for more information on the Lucas Plan.

The conference will focus on 5 key themes:

The Lucas Plan and socially useful production.

Arms conversion and peace.

Climate change and a socially just transition to sustainability.

The threat to skills and livelihoods from automation.

Local/community economic and industrial planning.

Linking all these issues is the need to rethink how we can produce what people and society actually need and overcome corporate domination through their control of technology.

The conference on the Lucas Plan 40th anniversary will be held at Birmingham Voluntary Service Council (138 Digbeth, Birmingham, B5 6DR) on November 26, 2016. See www.lucasplan.org.uk. The conference is being organised and sponsored by: former members of the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Combine, Breaking the Frame, PCS, UCU, Million Climate Jobs Campaign, Green Party, Scientists for Global Responsibility, Campaign Against Arms Trade, CND, Left Unity, Quaker Peace and Social Witness, Red Pepper, War on Want, Conference of Socialist Economists, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Newcastle TUC and Momentum.

BACKGROUND INFO: The Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards Combine’s Alternative Corporate Plan (‘The Lucas Plan’) was launched in 1976 and became famous worldwide, sparking an international movement for socially useful production and workers’ plans. Facing the threat of redundancies, the Combine collected 150 ideas from shop floor workers about alternative socially useful products that could be produced by the company, instead of relying on military orders. Many of the innovations in the plan, such as hybrid car engines, heat pumps and wind turbines were commercially viable and are now in widespread use. Although the Alternative Plan was rejected by Lucas Aerospace managers, it was instrumental in protecting jobs at Lucas in the 1970s. The Combine was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and Mike Cooley received the Right Livelihood Award in 1982. More information about the Plan, including the 53-page summary of the five 200 page volumes, can be found on the conference website, www.lucasplan.org.uk.

Date: THIS FRIDAY, 18th NovemberTime:6:00pmLocation: US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London, W1A 2LQ. Map here
As the UN COP22 climate talks in Marrakesh draw to a close, a new dawn for climate policy is breaking with the election of Donald Trump as the President of the USA.

Environmental campaigners' worst fears look to be justified, as Presdent-elect Trump has already announced the appointment of Myron Ebell, a prominent climate change denier with strong links to the fossil fuel industry, as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Earlier this week, the World Meteorological Organization predicted that 2016 is almost certainly going to be the hottest year on record, surpassing last year's record. Trump has called climate change a "hoax". The disconnect between the climate crisis and those holding power has never been starker. Now only the most wildly optimistic have any hope that the world won't pass 2°C.

This time last year the world's leaders came together in Paris to agree the historic Paris Climate Agreement, which aims to limit the increase in temperature to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. It came into earlier at the beginning of the month. America is responsible for almost 20% of global carbon emissions and is the world's highest per capita polluter.

Trump has made it clear that he wants to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as possible and his staff are already looking for ways to do so. There are real fears that this could pave the way for similar moves from other countries looking for a way to appease those with vested interests.

So, join us outside the American Embassy in Mayfair at 6pm on Friday to send a clear message: Trump's climate policies are nothing short of genocidal and will seal the fate of the millions, if not billions of people who are set to lose their lives as the planet warms irreversibly.

Friday, 11 November 2016

Nb In the original version of this notice, SERTUC described Anneliese Dodds as "The South East's Voice in Europe", as there is a Green MEP for the South East, Keith Taylor, this is a piece of gratuitous Labour tribalism.

SERTUC Pensioners Network welcomes Guest Speaker:

Anneliese Dodds MEP -

Anneliese was elected for the first time in May 2014 and was already very active across the length and breadth of our region. Regularly out and about talking with constituents, local businesses, charities and other organisations about the issues which matter most to them, she now visits SERTUC Pensioners Network.

Anneliese will discuss life after Brexit, the European Work Programme including issues that affect pensioners, and stopping discrimination against disabled people in the workplace. There will be opportunity for questions and discussion.

Bromley trades council

First Annual Conference for trade union members and community activists Saturday 19 November 10am NHS & Social Care facts, Learn about local services, link and work with others. More form bromleytradescouncil@gmail.com

Chelmsford trades council

Banner Theatre with “Chicago: the great teachers’ strike” Monday 28 November 7pm £10/£5. More from acoburn@blueyonder.co.uk

Friday, 21 October 2016

From Grunwick to Deliveroo - migrant workers, trade unions & the new economy

A one-day conference on migrant workers, trade unions and the new economy.

Forty years ago Asian women at Grunwick led a strike for basic human dignity at work and for the right to join to a trade union. Today these battles are still being fought, often by migrant workers in precarious employment conditions. The experiences of workers at Byron revealed the extent to which migrant workers can be exploited by 'the new economy' and tossed aside when no longer needed, while those at Deliveroo showed that resistance is both necessary and possible.

This one-day conference will bring together campaigners, trade unionists, activists and thinkers to examine the changing nature of work and the terrains for resistance.

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 26TH 10.30AM-5.30PM

Willesden Library Centre
95 High Road
London
NW10 2SF

Willesden Green tube (Jubilee line)

Although a free event, please ensure you book your place HERE as spaces are limited.